


Non-Quintessential

by AshAlert



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, COMMENT IF I SHOULD ADD A SHIP INTO THIS, Fluff and Angst, Galra Keith (Voltron), He's turning purple and keeping his feelings to himself, Hurt/Comfort, I don't know if I'll continue it tbh, If Haggar got sick because of all that quintessence then what is gonna happen to Keith, Keith calls Lance an ass, M/M, Me hurting Keith again, Mention of blood, THE KLANCE CAN BE SEEN AS PURELY PLATONIC IF YOU WANT TO READ IT THAT WAY, he got drenched in it yo, i wrote this in four hours please don't judge me too harshly, kind of, not even four actually, okay hear me out, or Laith, whatever it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-28
Updated: 2017-08-30
Packaged: 2018-12-20 18:40:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11926890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshAlert/pseuds/AshAlert
Summary: Keith is turning more Galra by the second thanks to that druid slinging him into the Quintessence container.(Stupid theory, guys. Don't mind me. This is completely unedited and I wrote it in almost four hours.)





	1. Chapter 1

It didn’t make sense to Keith. At all. There should be no reason his skin would be doing this right now. Nothing made sense- until he was told about the original paladins.

Apparently, Zarkon’s wife, the witch lady or whoever exactly she is, researched quintessence. She experimented with it every day and night. She became addicted to it. The woman was hooked on this magical liquid so, so many decades ago. She used so much of it that it changed her. Appearance, emotions, logical skill- she changed in every way. But that was because she used too much of it.

Right?

She was addicted so she exposed herself to so much of it that she changed. He had just been exposed to it for a few seconds.

So, as he looked in the mirror, he wondered: _‘Why is this happening to my skin? This isn't right. What am I going to do? Everyone’s going to hate me again.’_

He could see the veins in his arms and chest. Not because they were protruding out or anything, no. His blood had turned violet.

Keith noticed it after they rescued Allura from the hands of the Galra, after his fight with a druid. He was flung across the room and crashed into one of the giant containers of quintessence. It burned through his suit like acid, completely dissolving one of his gloves. It soaked into his skin. Sure, it hurt like Hell, but he didn't think anything of it at the time, he just moved on. He didn't have to talk details about it with the team. That just wasn't necessary. Was it?

He wasn't so sure now.

Keith traced one of the veins with his finger. It went from his wrist the left side of his chest, almost to his heart, but the vein disappeared below violet skin. Granted, this was fairly new.

He woke up early that morning with chest pains, he turned the lights on and there it was. Violet.

He had hoped the changing of color could just end at the blood, but it seemed there was something else going against him. Now his skin was turning violet and he didn't know if it would spread or not. It was just around his heart right now, but what if it spread? What if it went down to his fingertips or up to his neck? What if it never stops growing and he ends up purple for the rest of his life. More importantly, what would the team think?

He was relatively calm about the color change, but not about what the others would say.

They’d ditch him completely. He was going to look like the ones who tortured Shiro. They took Allura, Coran, and Pidge’s family away too. They were the enemy. He was the enemy.

It got worse, and just the color. A week later, he got the same pain in his chest again while training. Luckily, he wasn't fighting the drones, rather sparring with Lance. (Shiro said it was to release tension and anger, but he didn't really pay attention to that part.)

Keith was winning easily until the pain hit. He clutched the light grey fabric above his chest for one second, got distracted for one second, and was kicked across the room in one second. He landed hard, still holding his shirt in a death-grip. Lance ran to him and yelled something, but Keith couldn't hear anything. The blue paladin looked more worried than proud of himself for the hit.

“It’s okay. Chest is just-” Keith’s breaths were getting more shallow with every second, “I have to go.” He rushed out of the room.

He couldn't hear anyone yelling behind him or the quick pace of his footsteps. His vision seemed to decline after that as well. Everything was spinning and now he had a migraine. Amazing luck, right? Keith accidentally ran into his bedroom doorframe, but he was already in too much pain to laugh at himself.

He dropped down on the bed and gathered himself. His breathing steadied slightly, vision returned, and now it was just a small headache and pain in his chest.

But when he remembered what had been happening for the past week, he gasped and quickly pulled off his shirt. The color was spreading.

The violet color had reached out to his shoulders and waist. He covered his mouth, but refused to cry. Even worse? The color was still spreading. It crept across his skin slowly and all he could do was watch it. It eventually stopped after a couple minutes. It stretched halfway up his neck, down to his hipbones, and to his elbows.

Keith did the only thing he could think of, besides panicking and keeping this whole thing to himself. He put on the top to the dark grey pilot suit they wore under their armor and keep quiet. After he calmed down, he returned to the training deck.

To his surprise, everyone's attention snapped to him as soon as the door opened. Shiro paused his sparring match with Hunk and walked over to Keith, asking a hundred questions a second. Lance ran over to him, looking the most worried somehow.

“Are you okay? What happened? What distracted you? Are you hurt?”

“I thought I heard a crack! You hit the wall and ground pretty hard, are you okay? Did I break one of your ribs? I didn't mean to actually hurt you! I’m so sorry!”

Keith stared at them for a minute, in shock that they were worried about him. Then he smiled softly.

“I’m fine. Did you actually think you could hurt me, Lance? Better luck next time.” He patted the blue paladin’s shoulder and walked past them to join Pidge on the bench.

Lance stood there with his mouth wide open for at least two minutes. After that, he started yelling at Keith. Something about  _'I was being nice to you for once and this is what I get?!’_ Keith was paying more attention to Pidge trying to upgrade her bayard.

 

Later that night, at dinner, he had began to think more about the secret he was keeping. Lance was still pouting about earlier and Hunk was laughing at him. Keith was zoned out and Shiro was the first one to notice. He looked at Keith, the others followed one by one.

Keith was suddenly aware of the complete silence and snapped out of his trance. He scanned everyone’s faces, “Why are you all looking at me like that?”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“You’ve been acting weirder than usual, Number Four.” Coran added after Shiro.

“Wh- No. I’m fine.” Keith smiled nervously, but Shiro wasn't buying it.

The red paladin’s anxiety levels were spiking. When this happens he usually crosses his arms, it comforts him for some reason he isn't sure of, but he had already been doing that. So, he resorted to plan B, biting his lip.

This time, it was a mistake. As soon as he bit down, the anxiety was replaced with _pure_ regret. He gasped in pain and his hand went to his mouth.

“Keith?!” Pidge yelled worriedly.

Keith moved his hand down, catching the blood dripping down his chin. “I’m good. Don't worry about it.”

Allura stood, staring at the blood and stood up. “Your blood isn't red.”

Lance’s eyes widened when she said that, because he had just realized it as well. Hunk was as surprised as anyone, his colorblindness just added to his confusion.

“You have fangs…” Coran stepped away.

Keith was terrified, he stood up and ran out of the room, hoping no one followed him.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith gets more attention than he would like.

As soon as he got into his room he locked the door and got a towel. He drenched it in an equivalent to (almost scorching) hot water and soap. He started scrubbing harshly at the purple skin. It didn’t come off and it didn’t look like it was going to come off anytime soon. Keith didn’t stop though. He scrubbed until his skin was red, it could have been from the pressure or the fact the water temperature was higher than the human body should ever be exposed to.

The blood leaking from his lower lip hadn’t stopped either, if anything it was getting worse, but he was still too preoccupied with the skin to notice. If it would have just been the fangs, he would have been fine. Why the violet? Why did he have to change to look more like the monsters they were trying to defeat, to kill? He dropped to the floor, nearly hyperventilating. He even grabbed his knife at one point and put it against his chest, considering trying to cut the skin off, but he dropped it after he realized how dumb the idea was. It wouldn’t solve anything, it would just get purple blood over everything.

 _‘Stop it. You're over reacting. No, the others will hate you. Shiro, Allura, and Coran will be afraid of you. The others probably will too. They’re going to abandon you.’_ The voices in his head just wouldn’t SHUT UP.

‘ _They’re going to abandon me, they’re going to abandon me, they’re going to abandon me.’_ It was his own voice this time. He whispered to himself while trying to keep himself from letting any tears out. Salt and iron, tears and blood, don’t taste good together after all.

  
**Bang, bang, bang, bang.**

  
He heard people slamming their fist against the door. ‘They’re coming to kick you out. They’re going to either leave him on a deserted planet to die, turn him in to the Galrans, or just kill him by themselves. To him, the first two were the worst options. He had already been abandoned so many times, and no matter what, it hurt more and more each time.

The banging on the door stopped. The only things he could hear were the air systems of the ship and quiet whispers outside the door. Then a soft voice came through.

“Keith?... Are you okay? We aren’t mad. We’re more concerned about your health to be completely honest.”

Coran?

“I promise you, none of us are mad at you, Keith. You should have told us if you knew this was happening to you though. Look, just unlock the door.”

Shiro...

No. They were probably lying. They were trying to lure him into a sense of false security. They had to be.

“You’re our teammate, we aren’t leaving you like this.”

“Yeah, what Pidge said.”

“Lance, I don’t think ‘ditto-ing’ is going to help much in this situation.”

Lance whispered not so quietly, “I don’t know what to say, Hunk!”

“Quit it.” Shiro tried to take control of the situation once more, but was unable to. There were just a bunch of jumbled up voices. If the light had been on in the room, Keith would have noticed that his vision was going out again. But now he just noticed that the same chest pain from before was back and he was covered in his own blood- Too much blood to be remotely healthy afterwards. He passed out as the rest of his team argued just outside the door about how to handle the situation.

 

 

 

  
“He’s not answering. It’s been a few minutes.”

“Why can’t we just force the door open?” Lance complained.

“He locked the door from the inside.” Shiro sighed.

“Number Five could probably override the control panel.”

“I could! Great idea, Coran.”

“Thank you!” The ginger yelled enthusiastically.

Pidge pulled the panel off the wall and studied the wires beneath. “Uh oh.”

“What?”

“Well, uh… First of all, there are about 12 wires. Second, I have no idea what they do, but there is going to one that opens the door and one that permanently closes it. So, there is a 1/12 chance that I’ll open the door. Also a 1/12 chance the door will seal completely. But I don’t know what the others do so I guess there’s a 11/12 chance that something horrible might happen.”

“Pidge, there is a 12/12 chance something horrible will happen if you do not get that door open.”

“Okay, okay! _Sheesh_ , Lance.” She started to mess with the wires.

Everyone watched her, trying to pinpoint the moment when or if the door would open. It was silent for about three minutes. They couldn’t even hear Keith on the other side of the door, which worried a few of them in particular. So, as soon as the door opened, Shiro, Lance, and Pidge tried to get in at the same time. Pidge squeezed in first thanks to her small size. Pidge was also the first one to see all of the blood.

“Keith!”

“Oh no…”

“We- We have to…” Shiro couldn’t say anything else. Lance finished for him.

“We have to get him to a pod immediately! Everyone, get out of my way.” He said as he lifted Keith up. He didn’t care that the blood would probably stain his jacket purple. Right now, he was only focusing on his plan. ‘ _Get Keith to the pod, get him healed, slap him and tell him he’s stupid for keeping this to himself. Maybe do that after he’s completely better though? I’ll figure it out later.’_

 

 

 

  
He had to stay in the pod for four days. During that time period, the Galran attacks were harder to handle. Each one lasted way longer than they normally did. This was mostly because Keith was the fastest and most daring. He’d do almost anything to win, even if it meant he’d get hurt in the process. However, it was also partly because of Shiro. He was so worried about Keith that he would forget to give orders and sometimes he would be too distracted to dodge a laser or two. It was pulling the whole team down, really. They pulled through though. After one battle, Hunk and Lance went to check on Keith.

“We need him back soon. That was awful. We were almost caught.”

“Yeah, but we can’t rush the healing process, Lance.”

“We could try.”

“No. Whatever you are thinking- No.”

Lance sighed and the two walked into the medical bay. “I was just gonna suggest we-...” He looked terrified, “Where’s Keith?”

“He’s in the healing po- He’s not in the healing pod! He’s not in the healing pod!” Hunk began to run around the room in panic.

The pod was completely empty, however it had been shut. Coran walked into the room. “What’s with all the ruckus?”

“Keith is gone!”

“Ummm… Yes, but also no. He is gone from the pod. He came out of it about two of your Earth hours ago, we have been talking since then. You were in the middle of a battle so I decided not to tell you.”

“What? _Why?!_ ”

“Where is he?” Hunk asked, worried. “Is he okay?”

“I don’t think he’s willing to speak to everyone just yet. He’s doing better, but he told me what triggered the changes and if it’s true, they aren’t going to stop completely unless a miracle happens…”

“You mean he’s going to be completely purple?”

“Maybe, yes.”

“Can we see him?”

“I will ask.” Coran walked into the other room. Lance didn’t wait for a response, he just followed.

“Lance!” Hunk sighed and waited for to get his permission to enter the room.

 

 

  
“What did you think you would accomplish by not telling the team?”

As soon as Lance walked into the room, he started complaining. He didn’t look Keith in the eyes, mostly because the red paladin didn’t have a shirt on, but he made sure that the other knew he was talking to him.

“I-”

“You ever think that we might actually care about your well-being?”

“La-”

“Apparently not! You just _HAVE_ to be the loner all the time, don’t you? Being the loner doesn’t mean you have to be stupid! I know you dropped out, but still, dude, you have to tell at least one person what you’re going through!”

“Can you-”

“No! Shut up! I’m upset with you!”

“Well, I figured-”

“ _SHH_!” Lance smacked the red paladin as hard as he could, “We care about you, Idiot! That’s for thinking we don’t! We aren’t going to abandon you or something just because you’re turning purple!”

“Are- ...Are you about to cry?”

“No! I’m not!” However, the blue paladin was obviously about to cry.

Coran leaned in and whispered to Keith, “Well, at least he didn’t interrupt you this time.”

Keith smiled slightly, despite the pain from Lance smacking him before, Lance was stronger than he originally thought. He nodded.

“Don’t you understand this yet?!”

“You’re screaming. I can’t really-”

“I’m not screaming!”

The red paladin sighed and waited. He had to sit through a lecture for the next few hours, most of it wasn’t even about the problem, rather it was Lance just rambling about how stupid he Keith was. Keith thought he fell asleep on Coran’s shoulder, but his head was so scrambled at the moment that he couldn’t remember much of anything.

Lance finally stopped to take a breath, he was breathing heavily and there were more tears forming in his eyes.

“Are you done now or no?”

The blue paladin gathered himself, “I think so, yeah.”

“Good.” Keith attempted to stand, but collapsed as soon as he did. Coran tried to, but Lance was the one that caught him. “Off. Get off of me. Now.”

“You’re the one who fell on me!”

“Let me go.”

“What? No!  _I’m cradling you, Keith!_ ” Lance laughed.

“Let go of me, you Ass!” Keith tried to escape Lance’s grip, but to no avail.

“Nope. If you can’t tell us things we need to know then I have to stay with you to make sure you’re okay.”

“Ha. No Let me go or I’m hitting you.”

“Maybe I’d like that.”

“What?”

“What?” Lance let go, Keith fell down onto the floor, “Sorry!”

“Sure you are.” He grumbled.

“Keith!” Someone walked into the room.

“Shiro?”

Shiro ran to Keith’s side, dropping down to the floor to hug him. “Are you okay? What happened? Why didn’t you tell us?”

“I think we should wait until everyone is here before we explain.” Coran said while looking at Keith. The red paladin was too consumed in a bear hug to speak, he only nodded.

 

 

 

  
“Wait, but… The witch _died_ when that happened to her, so…”

“I don’t think it will go that far, however I am concerned about the fact she couldn’t be returned to her normal self afterwards.”

“We can’t fix it?” Hunk asked.

“Well, he’s not completely broken. There isn’t really much to fix.”

“‘Not _completely_ broken.’ Thanks, Allura.”

“Sorry, Keith.” The princess said nervously.

“We have stopped the process at least for a while, but I’m sure it won’t last forever.” Coran admitted.

“But what if we-”

“There’s nothing we can do. I’m going to turn purple.”

“And have fangs!’’ Pidge yelled.

“Yeah, but I don’t mind those.”

“Keith, you almost bled out when you bit yourself on accident.” Shiro tried to talk some sense into his brother, but he had the feeling it wasn’t going to work.

“So, if I bite someone on purpose-”

“Keith, no.”

Pidge laughed suddenly. Once she noticed everyone was looking at her, she stopped and pointed to Lance accusedly. “It’s his fault!”

“What did you do Lance?”

“I just said one word…” Lance tried to ignore the question.

“What word?”

The blue paladin looked Shiro in the eyes and without smiling he said: “Kinky.”

Shiro sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. The rest of the paladins laughed. The Alteans were just confused. “What does that mean???” Allura asked genuinely.

Keith, Hunk, and Pidge all looked at Lance with worry. He tried to think of something to say, but he was drawing a blank here. “We’ll tell you when you’re older?...”

“Okay!” Coran smiled like he wasn’t the oldest one in the room by a longshot.

“Anyway, Keith, I know you were probably worried we wouldn’t accept you, but you could have told us sooner. We just want to help you.”

“This sounds exactly like a speech Shiro gave me a long time ago.”

“Speech about what?” Shiro asked, Keith just gave him a look, “Ooh. That one. Yeah. And that speech is still true.” He smiled softly.

“What are we talking about?”

“Nothing.” Shiro and Keith said simultaneously.

“That’s not suspicious at all.” Lance said.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Keith, usually when you tell us not to worry about something, we _really_ need to be worried. I’m figuring this out.”

“Not important right now, Lance.” Shiro warned, “We all need to do more bonding exercises now. Since, apparently, we don’t trust each other with our lives.”

The rest of the paladins groaned. “Good job, Keith.” Pidge complained.

“Yeah, what Pidge said.” Lance added once again.

  
After that, the paladins trusted each other more. There were no more secrets, or at least close to no secrets. Shiro and Keith still kept one, but it wasn’t life-threatening. They worked better together. Keith didn’t just depend on himself anymore. He started to open up to the team more than he ever had to anyone in his whole life. Shiro was proud. Lance actually found this side of Keith less annoying and Hunk was happy he was smiling more. Pidge mostly knew this side already, but was glad he was sharing it with everyone else.

The violet didn’t stop. It eventually covered every millimeter of his skin. It was hard to get used to, but at least he was sure his team didn’t hate him for it. He did, however, use the fangs to bite several enemies. He said it was fun to do, concerning everyone, but it was working well so they couldn’t say much of anything.

Several alien species and allies started questioning team Voltron now that Keith’s heritage was evident, especially when the scleras of his eyes turned yellow, but the team defended him. The Blade of Marmora even told him he wasn’t alone in that fight. After all, most of them were full-blooded Galra, they knew what it was like to be treated like the enemy.

The biggest advantage to Keith changing? In Pidge’s opinion, it was how Keith could jump higher so he could get her things from the top shelves. Shiro was just happy that he was being more open. Lance thought it was that he seemed to be able to run faster, not to mention he was more flexible now- it helped him in hand-to-hand combat. That’s the reason for the last part. Combat. Hunk thought it was that Keith could now tell if a plant could harm them just by smelling it, now he didn’t have to worry about trying to research everything before he used it in a dish. Keith now had no excuse to get out of helping Coran clean the castle, since apparently he didn’t need to sleep as much. Keith didn’t really mind though. It gave him something to do while everyone else was asleep. The castle was always sparkling clean now. Allura thought everything about the change was good, or at the least it wasn’t as bad as she originally thought it was going to be. The only thing she didn’t like was that sometimes she’d notice Keith would be a little self-conscious of his new color. However, when she noticed he felt like that, she would use her chameleon-like ability to make her skin purple as well. It always helped and she was now extremely proud that she had a use for it.

Lance was still trying to figure out Keith’s secret he kept with Shiro- constantly. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if he figured it out? Keith thought if they could handle him looking more Galran then they could definitely handle a tiny unimportant secret.

Things were definitely getting better for the whole team. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's that! Thank you again for all of the comments and nice words! I really hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> (Also, I posted a little 'Meet the AuthorArtist' thing on my tumblr if you want to see that. My username is just "ash-alert".)
> 
> Thank you so much! <3 <3 <3

**Author's Note:**

> Don't know if I'll add??? If you DO want me to add (and maybe put a ship in as well) just comment and tell me! <3
> 
> This is kind of a theory, kind of not. I'm worried about him, okay? The quintessence literally soaked into his hand.
> 
>  
> 
> (I was working on another work, but I got some comments saying to continue this so yeah! I'm in math class right now, but I'm starting chapter two as soon as possible!)


End file.
